The New York Rangers, per their official twitter account, announced today that Chris Drury won’t be making the road trip with the team, and that Erik Christensen will be returning to the lineup tomorrow. The reason for Drury’s absence is an apparent sore knee issue that has been going on for the past few weeks and got worse last night.

Also per the teams official twitter account there are a few quotes from coach John Tortorella about the Drury situation…

Torts on Drury: “He has had cranky knee and has progressively gotten worse…gone a few weeks & flared up last night”

Torts: “He’s played this game hard for a long time and I think it’s a little bit of wear and tear…and it’s just acting up on him now”

The level of skepticism surrounding the timing of the Drury news is high. I do not buy the injury as the real cause, but I look at it as an attempt to save face for the captain instead of making him a healthy scratch. I have no doubt that Drury has creaky knees at this point in his career, but the timing is too suspect for that to be the legitimate cause of the move.

Christensen’s return will mark his first game since he suffered a second degree MCL sprain December 29th in a contest against the Devils. The main issue with Christensen over the past few days, as Dave pointed out recently, was his conditioning, not the knee.

As a result of the changes in personnel and the ineffectiveness of certain combinations last night, the Rangers once again have new lines.